Chapter 88 London Evening News

When Barron returned to London again, he met Phillips, who had also returned from France.

But this time when I came to London, in addition to Phillips, Asmodee’s other founder Mark also came with me.

Obviously, after discussion, they agreed to Barron's investment requirements.

Although Asmodee was established in 1995, the most successful board game before was still the board game "Totem Kuaishou" launched in 1998. As time has passed, the sales of this game have been much lower than before. .

They have always hoped to find another growth point for the company. In the previous life, they would win the right to publish the French version of the Pokémon trading card TCG next year, thus putting the company's development on the fast track. And starting in 2005, it successively accepted investment from private equity funds, and eventually developed into a tabletop game giant.

Now, what they are interested in is Werewolf owned by Halo Company.

In this transaction, Asmodee will receive a capital injection of 4 million pounds from DS Capital at a valuation of 10 million pounds, thereby obtaining the global license for the tabletop game Werewolf.

They will cooperate with Halo Company to promote the werewolf game around the world - currently mainly in Europe.

DS Capital, after paying 4 million pounds, acquired 40% of Asmodee's shares and became one of its major shareholders.

Next, Asmodee will redesign and release the regular version of "Werewolf" expected to be priced at 29.9 euros, and the deluxe version of "Werewolf" priced at 99.9 euros.

The deluxe version of "Werewolf" still uses the entire design of Smytheson Company - because Barron was originally paid to commission the design from Smytheson Company, so the design copyright of this set of games belongs to Barron, and now belongs to Halo Company .

The deluxe version of "Werewolf" still has more accessories, is more exquisite, and is aimed at high-end users.

But now, the 100 sets of game gift packages with the Smytheson brand logo that Barron originally customized from Smytheson have become top-notch products.

The "Werewolf" game gift packs released later will all be produced by Asmodee. However, because Smytheson does not have the authorization for Werewolf, it is impossible to customize Werewolf game gift packs for customers. This also makes Smytheson's initial customization The collection value of those 100 "Werewolf" game gift packs has greatly increased.

Twenty years later, an unopened original "Werewolf" deluxe edition game gift pack with the Smythson logo was bought for a high price of 1 million pounds at an auction at Christie's. …

…

A new free newspaper has appeared at various subway stations in London, called the "London Evening News". This newspaper is a new evening paper issued by the Independent News Company after the abolition of the "Sunday Independent".

"The Independent" is a morning newspaper, mainly targeting the well-educated elite; while the "London Evening News" covers news, sports, interesting things about life, entertainment, etc., and there are crosswords in the newspaper Games and Sudoku and other mini-games that are very popular among users are perfect for them to pass the time.

As a free newspaper, the "London Evening News" will be distributed free of charge in crowded places such as subway buses, supermarkets, commercial streets and office buildings - not only now, but even twenty years later, people on the London subway will still They all like reading newspapers rather than playing with mobile phones.

This is not because some British people like to read books and newspapers as boasted by "Reader's Digest", mainly because... well, until twenty years later, there was still no network signal in the London subway, so we could only rely on reading this kind of newspapers. Come and kill time.

The characteristic of "London Evening News" is that its content is popular and novel - you can think of it as the shocking content of Toutiao and UC... Therefore, it is very popular among middle- and lower-class workers.

In addition, this newspaper is easy to access, has a large amount of information, and has many advertisements - especially job advertisements and special product advertisements...

Therefore, it has gained momentum since it was first released. The printing volume of the first issue was slightly conservative, only 350,000 copies. However, two days later, the printing volume was increased to 500,000 copies per day. The supply was still in short supply. Finally, in One month later, the circulation of this newspaper exceeded 1 million for the first time!

Even among free newspapers, this circulation is excellent.

Many people in the newspaper industry have realized that a strong competitor has emerged!

In addition, the sales volume of "The Independent" began to rebound after the revision, and it has now stabilized to the 400,000 copies when things were good before.

It can be said that the independent newspaper industry has bucked the trend when many traditional paper media have begun to be impacted by the Internet and sales have decreased. This has also attracted attention within the newspaper industry. Many newspapers have begun to try to learn from the revision form of The Independent. Changes were made.

However, although the "London Evening News" is a free newspaper and will be distributed to the public for free, it was eventually discovered that its profitability was no less than that of the "Independent". Later, it even surpassed the "Independent" and became the Independent The industry’s largest source of profit.

The reason is naturally the multi-page advertising information provided for readers.

The layout of each copy of "London Evening News" is much higher than that of "The Independent". It can be said that half of the layout is occupied by various advertising information.

Although the price of each advertisement placed here is far less than that of "The Independent", there are many of them, and as the circulation of "London Evening News" continues to increase, the value of its advertisements will also increase. ——Merchants don’t care too much about the price of advertisements, but more about the scope of receiving these advertisements and the effective delivery rate.

Compared with these increased advertising costs, the increased printing costs of the "London Evening News" are nothing at all.

And with the popularity of the "Werewolf" game, each issue of the "London Evening News" has a dedicated page, which will print cards with various Werewolf occupations, so that when everyone gets together, they suddenly want to To play this game, you only need to find a free copy of the London Evening News - well, you can read the newspaper during the waiting time.

If Barron's initially bought the heavily loss-making Independent Newspaper, its prospects were not optimistic by others, but now, both the Independent and the newly launched London Evening News have achieved success. At that time, the praise for it began to be heard endlessly.

…

"Your Highness, it is a pleasure to meet you."

"Hello, Sir Blair, I am also very much looking forward to meeting you this time."

Just like what the Prince of Wales said to Barron last time, not long after, Sir Richard Dearlove, the director of MI6, took the initiative to meet Barron.

The full name of MI6 is the British Army Intelligence Bureau Six (MI6). Together with the KGB (Soviet National Security Council, now the Russian Federal Security Service), the American Central Intelligence Agency and Israel's Mossad, it is known as the world's four major intelligence agencies.

It can be said that there are many legends about MI6. The most famous one is naturally James Bond, the most famous agent in the world, 007. In the movie, he is affiliated with MI6.

"I know you are very concerned about the progress of the 'London Star' case, but with the involvement of our MI6, you should be able to guess that the things involved are quite complicated..."

I wish all book friends a happy Mid-Autumn Festival!